Changes
by Ladybug1212
Summary: A look into the Rocky Ridge Farm Years
1. Chapter 1

Laura placed the bread in the oven, and turned back towards the cabinet top, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. In doing so, she trailed a small streak of flour across her right cheek. A drop of sweat ran down her neck and she swiped it away, spreading flour across her neck as well. It was hot and humid that summer day in 1899 and even hotter in the kitchen. Manly had mentioned it felt like a thunderstorm might be brewing when he came in for lunch. But the bread had to be made despite the excessive heat it caused in the kitchen. Laura sighed and reached for a dish towel when a flash of white caught her eye outside the window.

"Rose" she thought. She glanced at the clock on the shelf in the kitchen. Hadn't she told her to bring the laundry in from the line at least forty five minutes ago? Her daughter Rose was twelve; soon to be thirteen come Christmas time. She displayed a stubborn streak a mile wide. Rose was a handful, stubborn yet full of life. Her eyes constantly sparkled with intelligence, curiosity, and more often than Laura liked defiance.

Laura sighed again as she headed out the kitchen door to the yard. She herself was now 32. Her thoughts briefly drifted to her Ma. When Ma was her age, she already had three children: Mary, herself, and Carrie, all under the age of ten. She would have two more children in her life, although only one more, Grace, would survive. Laura wondered how she did it when just her Rose seemed to be more than enough. A dark cloud temporarily passed through her thoughts as she thought of her baby son who had died in infancy. She quickly cleared him from her thoughts as she sought out her daughter.

"Rose!" she hollered from the yard. "Rose?!" she repeated. "Where is that child?" Rose came out into the clearing from the woods, the dogs trotting behind her. "Yes?" Rose answered innocently.

"Didn't I ask you to bring the laundry in from the line?" she said a little more impatiently than she meant to.

"Oh yes, I forgot…" Rose explained and immediately grabbed the forgotten laundry basket and began taking things down from the line.

Laura tugged at her collar and wiped the sweat from her brow. It seemed to have grown more humid. The sky was hazy and the air felt thick. She turned back to Rose. "Better hurry, it feels like a storm is coming."

Sure enough the wind began to pick up and thunder rumbled in the distance. Laura headed back into the house with Rose trailing behind her lugging the laundry basket.

Later during dinner, the storm raged outside. Rain pounded on the roof and against the glass, lightening lit up the sky, and thunder rattled the house. Rose sat at the table picking at her plate until she caught her father eyeing her and quickly stabbed a forkful of green beans and shoved them in her mouth.

Rose thought about how the storm made her feel. Wild, free, excited. She desperately wanted to run outside in the storm. Feel its power. The storm made her feel alive. As much as she loved her mother and father, part of her felt trapped and suffocated by her life on the farm. Even the town seemed lacking and small. Rose knew there was a big world out there, outside of Mansfield, Missouri.

Father and Mother discussed mundane farm chores during dinner. Rose was bored. She so wanted to escape this humdrum existence. She couldn't imagine herself settling for life as a farmer's wife, or even teaching school as her mother had done before she married. She often caught her mother staring wistfully out the window when she thought no one was looking, and she often wondered if her mother was truly happy.

She and father seemed happy enough, but Rose had decided that was no life for her.

After dinner they spent the evening in the parlor. Laura watched as the sun set in the west. She knew it was nearing 9:00. The sun set so late in the summer. It was nearing time for bed despite the fact that it was still light outside. She glanced over where Rose had fallen asleep in her chair, no doubt tired out by the day's adventures.


	2. Chapter 2

Laura sat on her bed in the early morning light. Manly had gone out to do the morning chores, and Laura knew she should be seeing to breakfast. However, once she had made the bed, she had sat back down upon it, her head swimming with thought.

She made her way into the bright white kitchen and glanced around. It was hard to believe that her kitchen had been the family's home when they had first arrived in Mansfield. She, Manly, and Rose had shared the small area. Eventually the tiny cabin became the kitchen as Almanzo had added onto the house over the years. It was now the grandest home she had ever called her own.

She smiled as she realized Manly had started a fire in the stove for her. He still did little things over the years that let her know he cared for her. She tied on her apron and felt the crinkle in her apron pocket. She pulled out a letter from Eliza Jane, Manly's older sister.

It was dated several weeks ago and she was yet again inviting Rose to come live with her in Louisiana and attend school in a civilized place. Laura and Eliza Jane did not have the easiest relationship. The tensions had started nearly two decades ago back in De Smet when Eliza Jane had been Laura and her sister Carrie's teacher. They never saw eye to eye. Almanzo, though in his forties, still struggled with Eliza Jane trying to play the older sister card and boss him around.

Laura felt angered by Eliza Jane's thoughts that Mansfield was uncivilized. She did so love the little town and their farm which was becoming more prosperous. Laura realized that Eliza Jane was her sister-in-law, her husband's sister, she still never could totally lose the resentment she felt when she remember how Eliza Jane had treated her and Carrie long ago in the school house. But she kept quiet for the sake of her husband and tried to let bygones be bygones.

Laura and Manly had discussed Eliza Jane's letter on their way into Mansfield to go to the mercantile for supplies, and both had agreed that Rose was too young to leave home at this time. Deep down inside, Laura awaited an angry letter from Eliza Jane in reply. She and Manly had also agreed not to tell Rose about Eliza Jane's offer. Laura feared deep down inside that her daughter might want to leave the farm, and she was not ready for her only child to be gone nor was she ready to face her only child leaving. She knew it would happen someday, as she had left her own Ma and Pa to marry Manly, but Laura still longed for a few more years with Rose.

Manly came in the back door to the kitchen startling Laura out of her thoughts. "Good Morning. It seems the rain did a good job of watering the crops" Manly said happily. He sat down the bucket of fresh milk and headed over to the wash basin. Laura quickly began to prepare a summer breakfast of scrambled eggs and fresh green beans from the garden, not before pouring the milk into the milking pans to separate the cream.

Rose came bouncing down from her loft her hair a wild mess. "Rose, please do something with your hair" Laura chided gently. "I will mother, I don't see why I need to braid it when no one can see me but the farm animals."

"Fix it anyway, and don't make any plans after breakfast, I need your help in the garden" replied Laura.

Rose sighed and plaited her hair into a braid in front of the looking glass. She had really wanted to go exploring again today in hopes of running into the boy again. He had smiled at her yesterday before his father had called him back to where they were chopping wood. She thought to herself that gardening was yet another chore she wanted to get away from. Why couldn't they just buy the vegetables at the mercantile that someone else had already picked and canned like some of her classmates at school's families did?

Rose again watched as her father and mother repeated the same routine they had been doing as far back as she could remember. They ate breakfast discussing the day's chores, and then her father left to go outside, and her mother cleared the breakfast table, and she herself had to do the dishes. Again Rose felt the tug at her heart that there had to be more to life than being a farmer.

A few hours later Rose and Laura were busy in the garden. "Rose, can you run into the kitchen and grab the milk bucket? There are more beans ripened than I planned on" Laura stated. Rose headed back up to the house to get the bucket. When pulling it down from the hook beside the kitchen door, she accidently knocked her mother's apron off the other hook. An envelope fell out of the pocket. Rose picked it up and started to shove it back into the pocket when she noticed her aunt's name in the top left hand corner of the envelope.

This filled Rose with curiosity. She saw the postmark was dated several weeks ago. Why hadn't her mother told her of the letter? Normally, when they received mail, mother read it aloud at night. Grandma Ingalls often wrote telling them of Grandpa Ingalls and her aunts, and of the De Smet news. The same was so of Grandma Wilder back in Minnesota. Every now and then Aunt Grace, her mother's youngest sister, would write Rose personally telling her of school events and her beaus.

Rose knew she shouldn't, but curiosity got the best of her, and she pulled the letter out of the envelope. She recognized Aunt Eliza's perfect penmanship. She began to read the letter and felt angry.

Laura, still in the garden, was wondering what was taking Rose so long. She became worried and headed back up to the house. She found Rose standing in the kitchen holding the letter. She looked up with angry tears in her eyes when she saw her mother come in. "How could you not tell me?" Rose demanded.


End file.
